Benavidez vs Yarde: Sam Noakes’ rise from railways to Riyadh world title shot

Sharon – who will be ringside in Riyadh alongside Noakes’ dad John – encouraged her sons to take up boxing. Noakes soon became a talented amateur at Westree Boxing Club in Maidstone and went on to win the ABAs in April 2019.

A month later he was invited down to Billy Joe Saunders’ WBO super-middleweight title fight with Shefat Isufi in Stevenage and Francis Warren, the son of hall of fame promoter Frank, told him he wanted to manage his career.

Noakes turned his back on the working life where he had jobs in a call centre, fast-food restaurant and as a roofer, to turn professional.

“Thinking about those jobs is what keeps me working hard in the gym,” said Noakes. “I don’t want to go back to that.

“The roofing was hard graft, but I was a fair-weather roofer. If it rained, you wouldn’t see me.

“You can’t get out of the ring when it is tough – but you can get back in the van when you’re on a roof and it starts raining.”

Noakes had three professional fights before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and had to briefly go back to work – helping out his brother as a ‘strapper’s assistant’ on the railway as they cut the power to allow work to be done on the electrical lines.

“It was a lot of time in the van,” Noakes said.

He would munch away on snacks and – after one night with a few too many treats – he hatched a plan to run a marathon the next day to burn them off.

“I was going to run 20 miles because I felt bad after eating a load of rubbish,” he said.

“Then someone said: ‘Why don’t you do a marathon if you’re going to go that far?’

“So myself and a friend went out and did the 26.2 miles. I did it in three hours 40 minutes.”

His run through the lightweight ranks had been steady – and Noakes has carefully navigated his way to the top of the division.